Monday, April 14, 2014

Did Solomon Called the Queen of Sheba by Mobile Phone?

I was in “The Book Club” last Wednesday in Kerbala. A new
novel by Ala’a Mashthub was recently published. In that novel Mashtoub talks
about history of Iraq. He doesn’t name them frankly but his protagonists seems
to be: Arbaham, Ismail, Hajir, Hamourabi, and others. An old man commented that
Mashthub is fabricating. Mashthoub answered: “I don’t understand what is
fabrication, do you mean collage?”

Another attendee, Jasim A’asi, reminded us of a short story
by Jaleel Al-Qaisy in which the protagonist flies in a space ship to Sumer and
meets ancient people. A’asi said that the novelist’s duty is not that of the
historian. The novelist wants to transfer the soul of that era to us.

Another old man then commented: “But now the question is: is
it acceptable for a novelist to write that Solomon had called Bilqis, the queen
of Sheba, by mobile phone?

That was such an interesting evening.

At home I was packing some old newspapers so that I throw them in the garbage and found "accidentally" articles by Ala'a Mashthoub, most of them about the body, or the body-soul dichotomy, and about Merleau-Ponty. I cut all the articles and kept them together so that I read them. I burrowed a book about the work and ideas of Merleau-Ponty from one of my friends who kept telling me that it is vital that I read phenomenology since I am a psychiatrist.